Background: Specialty wards (e.g., cardiology or oncology wards) group clinically similar hospitalized patients in efforts to improve outcomes and costs. When these wards exceed capacity, subsequent patients overflow to “geographically dispersed” alternate wards. Geographic dispersion has been associated with care inefficiency and worse outcomes on specialty wards, but has not been studied in a large, [...]

Background: Hospitalized patients are often cohorted on specific inpatient wards in an effort to improve outcomes and provider satisfaction. When hospitalist beds are fully occupied, patients may be admitted to off-service inpatient units. Dispersion to multiple units has the potential to affect multiple outcomes. Hospitalist groups may develop cohorting programs, either in the form of [...]

Background: All oxygenation devices are the aerosol-generating procedures and can generate some contaminated aerosols and droplets from the patient’s airway and transmit them through the air, especially in close contact or in an enclosed space. Increasing the flow rate in O2 devices can provide more FiO2, such as using HFNC, which can improve the hypoxia [...]